Snark on a Sinking Ship
Amid the debt debate, the tea party its and gay allies are more insults than sound ideas
The outcome of the tea party’s invented crisis over the national debt ceiling remains uncertain as I write on Monday morning, but one thing is clear: Republican House members have only been encouraged in their hostage taking. They talk of denying President Obama a blank check, as if Congress had not appropriated every dollar he spends. These are the days of wonder, when ideology trumps reality. Maybe I should just give in to it. Who will be my guide to this strange new world? Of course: GayPatriot on Twitter!
GayPatriot is a sharp-tongued warrior of the gay right, the avatar of GOProud board member Bruce Carroll. He tends to be factually challenged, as when he pretends that Obama was unwilling to compromise on the heavily compromised health care reform law. He calls our inveterate dealmaker-in-chief a tyrant; but if Obama (who incidentally won 9 million more votes than John McCain in 2008) is a tyrant, why hasn’t he made GayPatriot disappear?
Mostly, between numbingly detailed updates on his daily itinerary, Carroll tweets a steady stream of snark. Recently he touted Sen. Rand Paul’s reply to tea party critic McCain, “I’d rather be a hobbit than a troll.” He seconded GOProud’s slam against “@LogCabinGOP’s disgusting and shameful smear campaign against @AnnCoulter.” (Yes, how dare Log Cabin drag the debate down from Coulter’s elevated level?) And he tastefully joked, “Dang. I guess I won’t be able to sell these Amy Winehouse concert tickets now…”
I found common ground with Carroll when he mentioned not wanting to hear further from Newt Gingrich. I was also relieved when he tweeted, “I’m very glad I cashed out my stocks & bonds two weeks ago, and locked my mortgage rate last week.” After all, there is nothing sadder than an impoverished right-wing tool.
GayPatriot is a great champion of civility, so he must have been appalled when Lawrence O’Donnell banned freshman tea party Congressman Joe Walsh from his MSNBC program on charges of hypocrisy. Walsh had said, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids,” despite having failed to pay $117,437 he owes in child support. Walsh did manage to loan $35,000 to his own 2010 campaign. Let’s hear it for Republican family values.
GOProud is eager to meet GOP presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann, who shakes one fist at big government while pocketing federal subsidies with the other. GOProud finds this homophobe, like all Republicans, far preferable to Obama. After all, Obama only saved the American car industry and prevented a second Great Depression — as opposed to George W. Bush, whose two wars and huge tax cut for the rich were also paid with borrowed money. Republicans are fine with the redistribution of income, as long as it is upward.
You have to understand that winning control of one house of Congress — and being able to filibuster the other into paralysis — entitles Republicans to prevail on everything, just as they graciously gave way to liberal policies after Democrats swept the 2008 election. What? You don’t remember it that way? How unpatriotic of you.
Sadly, GOProud’s party loyalty was rewarded a few days ago by banishment from the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference. My guide to the revolution is not an insider after all, but an exiled jester.
In Washington, it is said, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes true. Thus the nativist zealots among us chant “Take America back” as if that renders the more moderate majority illegitimate. The tea party, it turns out, is run by the Mad Hatter, who has won by ransom what he could not win by election. It’s time for sane adults to wake up and govern.
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